Page 27 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021- Online Magazine

Exceptional

SENIORS

The
Remarkable

Geneva Boren

By Virginia Cagle

od put Geneva Boren on daddy often asked her to transcribe
this earth August 14, 1923, the words of President Franklin D.
Gand she has been busy ever Roosevelt, whenever he would make
since, making the world a better a speech on the radio.
place wherever she is! Many people
know Geneva as the owner of G. Geneva was named valedictorian of
Boren Personnel, a longtime Lubbock her 7th grade class and would have
business, but that is only one part of been valedictorian of her senior class
her many-faceted life. but was disqualified because she had
not attended the school long enough.
Geneva Devona Byrd was born in She also worked part-time during Aerial Engineer - Staff Sergeant
Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, to parents high school, earning a whopping Percy Boren
Leonard and Thelma Byrd. She was $2.50 per week. Geneva fondly remembers that,
one of six children. Her sisters were when she first moved to Lubbock,
Genet and Gerena (“Toots”), and her During her school years, Geneva also one of the first things she did was
brothers were Gerome, Genar, and began her relationship with God. join a “little dance club” that held
Geloam. When the kids were still With the encouragement of a Sunday weekly dances. She had always
little, their daddy moved the family School teacher, she started reading loved it when her parents would take
to Spur, Texas, where his mother the Bible, and at age 14, she accepted her and her siblings to square dances.
resided. That’s how Geneva became the Lord into her life. That’s when The kids had to sit on stools and
a Texan. she learned to tithe, giving 25 cents
every Sunday from her earnings. watch, as they were never allowed to
During the Depression, the family dance.
was so poor that sometimes they Geneva graduated from Spur High She made lots of friends at the
barely had anything to eat. Her dad School in 1941. That same year, dances, notably some young men
worked as a janitor at a school. When a representative of Draughon’s in uniform, and she always had a
he found discarded sandwiches in Business School came to the Spur good time. She became friends with
the trash cans, he would bring them area to recruit students. Geneva’s a particular GI, who introduced her
home to the family to share for a parents let her go back to Lubbock to a handsome young serviceman
meal. At other times, a meal might with the man to enroll in the school. named Percy Boren. It didn’t take
consist of a pan of cornbread and an (Such a thing would be unheard of long for that friendship to develop
onion. today.) But it was all legitimate, and
the school even helped her find a into a more serious relationship. On
Geneva excelled in school. During little place to live while she attended. August 22, 1941, Percy and Geneva
high school, she was especially Her mother remarked, “Geneva is went to Clovis, New Mexico, along
proficient in typing and shorthand. going to be a businesswoman, and with another couple, and got married
She was so fast at shorthand that her she is going to travel.” by the local Justice of the Peace.

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